Editor’s Note: Iran has been making headlines in the media a great deal over the last few years. Here’s a side to the story you don’t normally get to hear, as experienced by our own Geoff Lawton. We are applying Permaculture techniques to restore the landscape in the hottest place on the planet In December 2008 it was our great pleasure and honour to be invited to Iran to work […]

Most readers will be familiar with the awesome, seemingly miraculous work Geoff and Nadia Lawton accomplished with the ‘Greening the Desert‘ project in Jordan (not to be confused with the new Jordan Valley Permaculture Project, where completely new miracles are under way). Well, this work has now been well profiled in the ProAct Network’s recent release: The Role of Environmental Management in Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, Annex […]

Two simple ways of illustrating how to plant the rain Brad Lancaster, author of the award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond” and info-packed website www.HarvestingRainwater.com, demonstrates how we can get the most from the rain by planting it in the soil, then accessing it with living pumps of plants. These are simple concepts that help turn scarcity into abundance.

This is a story of how permaculture transformed the lives of two young Canadians… At the beginning of November 2006, my partner Jesse left our home in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on a three month journey to the homeland of permaculture – Australia. Inspired by the teaching styles of Geoff Lawton and Bill Mollison, Jesse returned home determined to make permaculture our full time occupation. During the next year we […]

by Darren Doherty of Permaculture.biz An example of the results Click for larger view I developed a technique in 2007 during a Keyline Design Course at Tuscon, Arizona for making a contour map using cheap available materials. One of our students didn’t have the cash to get a surveyor to do the job on his 40 acres, so I came up with this solution on the whiteboard and have since […]

Last training camp we were fortunate in having an excavator in operation on the farm. Earthworks were a go and water harvesting / tree growing systems were carved out harmonically into the landscape. Three new swale systems and a small dam were introduced, extending the productive edges on the farm.

Hi folks! — we have been busy digging up Minnesota with dams and swales. This is just the beginning of the “Permaculture Research Institute for Cold Climates”. We’re now on route to California, hopefully to do some more serious digging. :) Here’s how we started: Click thru for the entire photo series!

Jordan is an arid country with limited water resources. The available renewable fresh water resources dropped drastically to an annual per capita share of 155 m3 in recent years compared to 3400 m3/cap/year in 1946. It is considered also as one of the 10 poorest countries worldwide in water resources (Countries with less than 500 m3/capita/year are regarded as having “absolute scarcity”). In 2004, the total water use in Jordan […]

Water gives life and can also destroy life. When we allow rain water to flow gently over the landscape taking the most time making the most contact with earth water is most fertile. But, when running uncontrolled it can cause erosion and death. No food can grow on land which is eroded and farming can only flourish on fertile soil. But only eco-systemic farming systems can create soil. At ITT […]